Extreme Devotion

Article from: Voice of the Martyrs

"When the Public Security Bureau officer entered the Chinese prison cell, Sister Wong moved away. This heartless man had arrested and persecuted many Christians, and only days earlier had beaten her as he interrogated her.

“Please, Sister Wong, my sister is very ill. She has lost all feeling in her legs. Will you come and pray for her?” Was this the same man who had confiscated hundreds of Bibles and Christian books from her? Now he was asking for prayer? Truly God must have gotten his attention.

Days earlier, as the officer had questioned and abused Sister Wong, he received a phone call that his mother had been hit by a car. When he told his mother what he’d been doing, she told him that his harassment of Christians caused her accident. The officer deemed the warning mere superstition.

The next day, he resumed questioning Sister Wong but got another message that his brother had been injured in an accident. The brother also blamed the officer’s attacks on Christians for the family’s misfortune. But when his sister became ill, he asked Sister Wong for prayers.

Sister Wong saw the opportunity she’d been praying for, the chance to witness to her persecutors. God healed the sister, and through Sister Wong’s actions, he changed the officer’s heart. The officer returned all the Bibles that were confiscated and now supports the church."

"Just as Pastor Li Dexian began his sermon, the doors of the house church burst open. Armed officers of the Chinese Public Security Bureau poured into the room, threatening everyone present and grabbing Li to arrest him.

“Wait, please allow me to grab my bag.” As always, the pastor’s tone with the officers was polite yet firm.
The officers were surprised at the request. “What’s in there?” they demanded, grabbing the black zippered bag Li held and ripping it open. The bag contained a blanket and a spare change of clothes, Li told them, because he had been expecting to be arrested that day.
Pastor Li had been arrested many times. Twice, police had beaten him to the point that he vomited blood, and one time Li’s face was beaten with his own Bible. Li was warned that police were watching the village where he held his Tuesday meetings. He knew if he showed up to preach, he would be imprisoned. Today, Chinese citizens can be sent to labor camps for up to three years without a formal trial.
The risks were great, but Li’s bag was packed. More than having a bag packed, though, he had his mind and heart prepared. He was willing to pay any cost to preach the gospel. He was convinced God would care for him—even in prison."

Thank you Bekka.

http://www.persecution.com

http://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Devotion-Martyrs-Writing-Team/dp/0849917395

http://www.persecutionblog.com/extreme_devotion/index.html

This is a great devotional. I started it at the beginning of the year and have been so blessed by it. It really helps me to refocus and keep life in the right perspective, especially in light of persecution that our brothers and sisters face around the world, and giving that extreme devotion to the Lord right now in every way possible.

_Disciple_ wrote:
Dear Bekka,

where do you receive this from? Is it available somewhere on the web?

It's so powerful, I'm silenced as I read how our brothers and sister are willing to suffer for Christ.

Poor us here in the so rich west

It's here, Daily Devotionals:
http://www.vomgroups.com/qry/forum/td_index.taf

Ranavalona I, the queen of Madagascar, hated the Christians in her kingdom. Her complaints against them were many: they despised her idols, they were always praying, They always went to church, and their women were chaste. She sent officers to gather all those suspected of being Christians to bring them to trial.

Sixteen hundred believers, when the charges were read, announced confidently, “Guilty.” They would not deny the charges, for to do so would be to deny Christ. The Queen offered them a second chance to deny Christ and bow to her idols, but each refused. They were thrown into dark, dank dungeons, and many were executed. The Queen was angered more, because for each Christian she had killed, twenty more rose up.
Later, the Queen ordered that fifteen Christians be executed. They were to be thrown over a cliff into a rocky ravine 150 feet below. The Queen’s idols were taken to the top of the cliff, and each Christian was lowered slightly over the edge, tied with ropes.
“Will you worship your Christ or the Queen’s gods?” the soldiers asked each Christian hanging over the precipice.
Each Christian answered, simply, “Christ.” The ropes were cut, and they plunged to the rocks. Some sang as they fell to their deaths. One young girl was spared and declared insane. She later founded a large church.

"We have learned that suffering is not the worst thing in the world—disobedience to
God
is the worst."

A VIETNAMESE CHRISTIAN PASTOR IMPRISONED FOR HIS FAITH

Dr. Robert Bateman gently helped his sister-in-law into the lifeboat. “Don’t be nervous, Annie. This will test our faith. I must stay and help the others. If we never meet again on this earth, we will meet again in heaven.” Bateman dropped his handkerchief to the woman as the boat dropped toward the dark, icy water below. “Put that around your throat, Annie. You’ll catch cold.”

Dr. Bateman then gathered about fifty men at the stern of the ship and told them to prepare for death. Earlier that day, he had conducted the only religious service on the large ship, a service that ended with his favorite hymn, “Nearer My God to Thee.”
Robert Bateman had founded the Central City Mission in Jacksonville, Florida, a spiritual lighthouse in a city regularly full of drunken sailors. He had been called “the man who distributes more human sunshine than any other in Jacksonville.” Bateman went to England to study Christian social work and was returning to the United States to put into practice what he had learned.
However, late on the night of April 14, 1912, Bateman’s ship struck an iceberg. Bateman led the men with him on the stern of the ship in the Lord’s Prayer. As the band played “Nearer My God to Thee,” the great ship Titanic slid under the waves.

------------------------------------------

Reverend Robert James Bateman (October 14, 1860 – April 15, 1912) was born in Bristol, England, and was ordained when he was twenty-one. During his life Bateman served as a pastor in England, Wales, Ireland, and the United States. In the United States he worked as a stone mason for his father before later serving as the superintendent of the Florence Crittendon Mission in Baltimore, Maryland. In the late 1890s Bateman moved to Knoxville, Tennessee where he founded the non-denominational Peoples Tabernacle. Bateman later moved to Jacksonville, Florida where he created the Central City Mission.

After a trip to Bristol, England in 1912 he booked second-class passage on board the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. He boarded the Titanic at Southampton on April 10 with his sister-in-law Ada E. Balls. On Sunday, April 14 he conducted a church service in second class, just hours before the Titanic hit an iceberg. As the ship was sinking Bateman helped Ada Balls into lifeboat 10. He told Ada Balls "If I don't meet you again in this world, I will in the next" and then tossed his necktie to her.[1]

His body was later recovered by the Mackay-Bennett, identified by his gold watch and chain, a Masonic charm pin, fountain pen, pipe lighter, and gold cuff links. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Jacksonville.

The unwritten code of the police was clear: If you catch the Khmu or other tribesmen converting to Christianity, arrest them. If you catch anyone evangelizing the tribesmen, kill him.

After “Lu” had been shackled at the hands and feet and shamefully marched through the village, the Communist police threw him in a pit. “We will let you go,” they said, “when one hundred Christians in your village renounce their conversion to Christianity.” But they were unable to find believers willing to turn their backs on Christ.

Then tragedy struck the police. One officer’s son broke both legs in an accident. His other son became critically ill. The officer who had beaten and harassed new Christians suddenly died of a heart attack.

Other officials fearfully pulled “Lu” from the pit and allowed him to return home. Government authorities were too frightened to take action against the Christians in the village after seeing what happened to their leader.

Seeing God’s show of power, more Khmu became believers. Where there had been one hundred Christians, now there were seven hundred. They even sent Christians out to tell other villages about Jesus. While the Laotian authorities were controlled by their fear, the Christians in Southeast Asia overcame theirs.

The brass shackle is called, in Arabic, a bacle. Peter held it out as if it were a sacred object. It was a reminder of his family’s past and of Peter’s great blessing.

His grandfather had made the bacle, but it was not a craft project. In fact, he was forced to wear it by his Islamic masters. Peter’s grandfather had been captured in Southern Sudan and taken to Northern Sudan, where he was bought and sold as a slave.

Peter’s grandfather, though harassed and tormented by his Muslim masters, would not join their faith. He held fast to his faith in Christ, and his body bore the scars of his refusal. Because he was not a Muslim, he was seen as nothing more than an animal.

Shortly before he died, Peter’s grandfather had the bacle removed and gave it to Peter’s father. “Our family will not always be slaves,” he said, “but we must never forget.”

Later Peter’s father gave it to him, and he carried it with him when he escaped from his Muslim owner and fled to freedom. Today, it is no longer a sign of ownership, but a sign of God’s overcoming power. It is a symbol of God’s hand on a family, working through three generations to bring them to freedom.

“Never forget my people,” he urged. “Never stop praying for persecuted Christians in Sudan.”

It was almost midnight as the women prisoners heard the Communist guards arrive. They quickly gathered around the condemned, a young woman of twenty who had been sentenced to die for her faith in Christ. They whispered hurried good-byes. There were no tears from the young Romanian woman, no screams for mercy.

Earlier that evening, the prisoners had listened to the young woman, her face glowing with love. “For me, this grave is the doorway to a heavenly city,” she had told them. “Who can tell the beauty of that city? There, sadness is not known. There is only joy and song. Everyone is dressed in the white of purity. We can see God face-to-face. There are such joys that human language cannot express. Why should I weep? Why should I be sad?”

She was engaged to be married, but this night, she told them, instead of being with her earthly fiancé, she would meet her heavenly bridegroom.

The pitiless guards entered the cell, and the woman stepped toward them, ready to go. As she left the cell, surrounded by guards, she began to recite the Apostles’ Creed. Minutes later, with tears streaming down their faces, the remaining prisoners heard shots. The executioners thought they had ended the young woman’s life, but they had only sent her to live forever in a much better place.

“My dress,” the young girl murmured, her words slurred through swollen lips. “Please give me my dress. I want to hold it.”

The Christians surrounding the girl’s bed were sad. Because of her extensive internal injuries, doctors could do nothing for her. Weeks ago, the believers had bought her a white dress to celebrate her new life and pure heart in Christ Jesus.

Her father had not been pleased with his daughter’s decision to follow Christ. One night, in a drunken rage, he attacked his daughter, beating and kicking her. He left her lying in the muddy street to die.

When she did not show up for church, her Christian friends went looking for her. They found the girl unconscious, lying in a heap, her formerly snow white dress now covered in blood and mud. She was brought to a doctor, but her injuries were severe.

Now she was asking for her dress.
“The dress is ruined,” her friends told her. They tried to talk her out of it, thinking that seeing the ruined dress would break down the girl’s spirit.

With the simple faith of a ten-year-old, she whispered, “Please, I want to show the dress to Jesus. He was willing to bleed for me. I just want Jesus to know that I was willing to bleed for him.”

Shortly afterwards, the young girl died.

“Collect some wood!” the soldiers snarled. Young James Jeda assumed that the soldiers were about to cook their dinner. Earlier that day, he had watched, horrified, as the radical Muslim soldiers killed his parents and four siblings in Southern Sudan. They spared James only to use him as a worker.

When the fire was well lit, James was surprised and terrified when they suddenly grabbed him, and he tried to flee. But the soldiers were too strong, and soon they had tied his hands and feet.

“Good news for you, young one,” said a soldier. “We are going to let you live. But you must join us by becoming a Muslim.”

“I cannot become a Muslim,” James said simply. “I am a Christian.”

Infuriated by the young boy’s faith, the soldiers picked him up and hurled him into the fire. They packed up their gear and left the area, assuming James would die.

Young James didn’t die. He managed to roll out of the fire and find help.

Doctors were able to save James’s life, but he will always carry reminders of that day. His body bears skin grafts and scar tissue, and one arm is partially deformed by the burns. In heaven, those scars will be honor bars, a reminder of the day when James Jeda refused to turn his back on Christ.

I had the physical sense of being prayed for. Even when I knew nothing and received no letters, I felt warmth as if sitting near a fire. Sometimes this happened in punishment cells, which are very cold. It was like hearing someone pray for me and think about me. This supported me so much. It is difficult to explain. . . . I felt and knew I was not forgotten. This was sufficient to make me resist the most difficult moments.

IRINA RATUSHINSKAIA—CHRISTIAN POET IMPRISONED
IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION UNTIL 1987

Pastor Florescu couldn’t bear to watch his son being beaten by the Communist officers. He had already been beaten himself, and he had not slept for two weeks for fear of being attacked by the starving rats the Communists had forced into his prison cell. The Romanian police wanted Florescu to give up other members of his underground church so that they, too, could be captured.

Seeing that the beatings and torture weren’t working, the Communists brought in Florescu’s son Alexander, only fourteen years old, and began to beat the boy. While Florescu watched, they hammered his son’s body unmercifully, telling the pastor that they would beat his son to death unless he told them the locations of other believers.

Finally, half mad, Florescu screamed for them to stop.

“Alexander, I must say what they want!” he called out to his son. “I can’t bear your beatings anymore.”

His body bruised, blood running from his nose and mouth, Alexander looked his father in the eye. “Father, don’t do me the injustice of having a traitor as a parent. Stand strong! If they kill me, I will die with the word ‘Jesus’ on my lips.”

The boy’s courage enraged the Communist guards, and they beat him to death as his father watched. Not only did he hold on to his faith, he helped his father do the same.

When the black hood was placed over Tom White’s head, he didn’t know if he would see the light again. “Where are you taking me?” he asked the Cuban guards. The guards said nothing.

Tom had been secretly delivering Christian literature to Cuba for seven years. He and others had dropped gospel tracts out of planes into the ocean around the Communist island. But he had never heard from a single Christian in Cuba that the materials had arrived.

“Please, God,” Tom had prayed, “give us some confirmation that our work is helping.”

Now, six weeks later, he was taken to meet a Cuban intelligence officer, Captain Santos. Their plane had crashed in Cuba, and Tom and the pilot, Mel Bailey, had been captured and charged with compromising the stability of the nation.

“Our people have found thousands of these on the beaches and in the fields!” Captain Santos shouted, holding one of the sea packages that had been dropped years before.

Tom tried not to smile. “Thank you, Lord,” he prayed, “for answering my prayer. Thank you that our work has not been in vain.”

The answer to Tom’s prayer was costly. He spent twenty-one months in Cuban prisons. But in Castro’s prison, he met many members of the church and learned that even under Castro, Christ’s body was prospering. God answered his prayer.

When Communists took over Vietnam, Pastor Nguyen Lap Ma refused to relinquish the Christian Missionary Alliance Church in Can Tho. For this “crime,” he and his entire family were placed under house arrest in a tiny, rural village with no travel and with no mail for the first twelve years.

Finally, when authorities loosened the mail restrictions, Pastor Lap Ma was thrilled to see letters arrive at his home. The Voice of the Martyrs published Pastor Lap Ma’s story and his address. Students, housewives, pastors, and businessmen wrote letters of encouragement to the pastor and his family. Vietnamese police were shocked when Pastor Lap Ma received more than three thousand letters from all over the world.
“I read every letter with prayers and tears,” Pastor Lap Ma said. “I devour every letter and meditate on the Scriptures shared in them. I then share these words of encouragement and the Scriptures in Vietnamese with my family. We are glad and encouraged by the messages in them.”
“God has strengthened and helped us,” the pastor continued. “So we keep hoping in him and fixing our eyes on Jesus. We follow him to endure the cross, scorning its shame to the point of death. While we are living, God uses us to comfort the other suffering Christians.” The letters encourage them as they happily encourage other believers.

[i]Encouragement is a necessary fuel for the Christian race. Without encouragement, as a runner without water, no one could endure the often grueling stretch for long. As we make our journey, we learn that encouragement is a two-way street. We give encouragement to others and so receive it ourselves from other believers and even from God himself. A little encouragement goes a long way in strengthening the weary and motivating those whose faith is languishing. We often find that the spiritual encouragement we receive from the prayers of those around us rejuvenates us for the second mile. In some cases, that is another twelve years in prison for our faith. In other cases, it is merely the ability to endure another day.[/i]

Exreme Letters - Part 1

Russia...Maria

Dear Mom and Dad,
I greet you with the love of Christ. I am doing well and feel very blessed. One of my schoolmates, Varia, is a member of the Communist Youth Organization. I have been witnessing to her, and I think I am finally starting to get through to her. Recently she said, “I cannot understand you at all. So many of the students insult and hurt you, and you love them anyway.”
I told her that God has taught us all to love, not only those who are kind to us, but especially those who are unkind—that they might see God within us. Varia has been one of the ones to join in the mocking and insults, but that has only made me pray for her even more.
Today, she asked me if I could really love her too! We embraced and both began to weep. I believe she is very close to receiving Christ. Please pray for her.
When you listen to those who loudly deny God, it seems like they mean it. But life shows that many of them really have a great longing in their hearts. And you can hear the groaning of the heart; they seek something and try to cover their inner emptiness with their godlessness.
I will write soon. Please send my love to everyone at home.
Maria

[i]
God created human beings with a spiritual space within them that can only be completely filled by him. When we run across someone who is hostile to Christianity, we can remind ourselves of the tremendous needs in that person’s life. Imagine a cavernous space in the chest cavity of your enemy—a body without a heart. This inner emptiness is what drives many people to a spiritual search. They either respond in faith, wanting to accept Christ’s offer to fill the void, or they respond with bitterness, rejecting Christ altogether. Often, a Christian’s presence simply reminds those who reject Christ what they are missing in their own lives. They are not resenting you personally. They resent what you represent.[/i]

Extreme Letters - Part 2

Russia...Maria

Dear Mom and Dad,
In my last letter I told you about the atheist girl, Varia. Now I am so happy to tell you the exciting news: Varia has received Christ! She is so different and is already witnessing openly to everyone.
When Varia first believed, she still felt guilty inside. I think she was unhappy because for so long she believed and made a point of telling others that there is no God. She felt that she needed to suffer and pay for this.
We went together to the assembly of the godless (Communist Youth Organization meeting). Although I warned her to be reserved, it was useless. After refusing to join in the singing of the Communist hymn, Varia went forward to address the whole assembly. She courageously told everyone about accepting Christ as her Savior!
She begged everyone to give up the way of sin and come to Christ, and the whole place was silent. When she finished speaking, she sang with her incredible voice the old hymn, “I am not ashamed to proclaim the Christ who died, to defend his commandments and the power of his cross.” I could only watch helplessly as they took her away. Today is May 9, and we haven’t heard anything about her.
Please pray!

Maria

[i]The greatest enemies of Christianity are prime targets for prayer. Like Saul of Tarsus, it is possible for a former enemy to become one of the greatest spokespersons for Christ. However, without prayer, it will remain only a possibility. Instead of being afraid of them or resenting them, we should pray for those in our community, country, and throughout the world who are vehemently opposed to Christ. Whenever we pray for nonbelievers—even atheists—we can envision the changes that would happen if their energies were redirected toward Christ instead of against him. They could become the next evangelists to share a powerful testimony of God’s grace. None of our enemies are beyond God’s reach, and prayer keeps them within his grasp.[/i]